We had many a conversation about what we were gonna be up to on the 26th. Seemed like somethin’ special was in order, lest them boys not show up again. Uncle Dave had connections from Window Rock to Pagosa, and so he was talkin’ anything from peyote to scopolamine to some Georgia Homeboy. I just told him to surprise me, and by god he did just that in gawdamn spades.
I spent the day bein’ domestic, helpin’ the wife with some house and garden stuff since I knew I’d be out in the cemetery later on, and who knew what was gonna transpire at that point. Maybe not even make it home before sunrise. It all depended on what Uncle Dave procured and what it wound up conjurin’ out there in the fields. He met me out in the shop about six o’clock, and I mixed us a coupla big ‘ol hemorrhoids before we got to talkin’ business.
“Guess what I got”, Uncle Dave asked after we both sat down. He pulled a bindle out of his hip pocket and laid it on the engine block sittin’ between us, opened it up and revealed a pile of white powder. It coulda been anything.
“What is it?”, I asked.
“Bufo”, he said. And smiled like I ain’t never seen him smile. I didn’t know what bufo was. Thought maybe he was just makin’ up a word to test me or somethin’, see if I’d try stickin’ it up my ass if that’s how he said you gotta do it. But then he says, “Bufotenin. From them big ass Colorado river toads. Five-aycho-dee-em-tee, dawg.” That got my attention. While I ain’t much of a chemist, I did learn to appreciate just how special them rare tryptamines are when I was doin’ my physics over at Ft. Lewis.
“Where’n hell you get that?”
“Some kids comin’ back from Lake Havasu picked it up from a guy who harvests it from the toads south of there. Scares ‘em, scrapes off the snot that comes outta their skin and cooks this up. Found it down in Farmington lookin’ for some cacti.”
We put it on the scale. Forty milligrams. I proceeded to fire up the cuttin’ torch and blow us a coupla little glass bowls to burn it in. We divvied it up, packed them bowls and waited for the sun to set while we killed a few more of them tasty beverages. This was gonna be somethin’. I could feel it in my bones.